Gas Pains

The Garden Chronicles

Posted by Tom Gaertner on June 16, 2008

Gardening, Just For Fun, Outdoors

Garden was planted on May 23-24 and stuff is growing.  Well, sort-of.  Until last Sunday.

Here's what I have planted:

Sweet corn (bicolor super sweet hybrid)

Peas

Blue Lake beans

Acorn squash

Beets

Scallions and Texas super sweet onions

Touchon carrots, parsnips and a couple of types of radishes

Pickles and cucumbers

Brussels sprouts

Fancy mixed and goblin egg gourds

Miniature and Connecticut field pumpkins

Cantaloupe

Romaine lettuce

Roma, beefsteak, Early Girl and cherry tomatoes

Red Pontiac potatoes 

My lovely wife is building a kitchen garden and has extended to me the courtesy of establishing an asparagus bed and one Cascade hops along the rock wall.

There have been problems almost from the start.

A hard frost following Memorial Day clobbered my tomatoes.  I planted five replacement Roma plants.  One remaining Roma is on life-support and the cherry tomato plant is looking stunted.

Last Friday everything else was looking pretty good.  Corn was up about three inches, potatoes had emerged and received their first covering layer of dirt, asparagus was up, radishes too.  Pumpkins were thinned.  Most everything else had begun to emerge.

As of Saturday late afternoon two thirds of radishes were looking dead and 90 percent of the sweet corn looked like it shriveled-up and died. - all in the space of 24 hours.

Sickly corn on the left and dead or almost-dead corn on the right.

I replanted some of the radishes and most of the corn.  Radishes grow fast but I think I've lost my sweet corn for the year.

 What gives?  All the rain followed by a couple of really scorching days?

 Updates to follow.

Tom